Oppressive

I’m feeling very forlorn today. I’m lonely and sad and I just want Alan to be home. Unfortunately, I still have two more weeks to go. It’s especially hard on weekends because I have to do all the weekend things by myself that Alan and I normally do together. On weekdays I don’t normally see him from about 5:15 to nearly 6:00 anyway, so being without him doesn’t come as a shock until he’s supposed to come home and hasn’t. On weekends I normally wake up to find him already playing video games, so the silence is weird and somehow more silent than usual.

Him being gone is screwing up my routine, even on the weekdays. I only have to do laundry once, maybe twice a week now. Normally I’m doing at least one load every other day. And because I’m not cooking as much and there’s only one person using the bathroom, nothing is getting as dirty, so it’s not quite so necessary for me to clean either the bathroom or the kitchen as often I normally would. As if having less to do with my time while he’s gone is a good thing?

And I miss having him at the Commissary with me. I really hate the place, but the prices are too good to resist. Walmart has similar prices, but even the thought of going there makes me cringe. Luckily I didn’t have much in my cart yesterday so I got to bypass the hideous line and go to the express lane. The thing about the Commissary that’s different from regular grocery stores is that there is a single line and as a cashier clears the previous customer, he or she will press a button and a sign at the head of the line (which is about in the middle of all the check-out lanes) will flash the lane number and say "Next please!" It’s not uncommon on payday weekends or right before the holidays for the line to stretch across the entire store and curve to follow the freezer cases on the far wall. One weekend it actually managed to go all the way up the line of freezer cases and curve around the back wall where the dairy is. Luckily, I had gotten in the line before it was that bad. ::sigh:: And Alan was with me.

The problem is that all the things that irritate me about living here are sort of softened by his presence. When he’s not here, I have to deal with all the idiots myself. And I swear that the idiots out here are so much worse than the idiots in Connecticut. I don’t even like driving out here because no one seems to know how to do it properly. I suppose it doesn’t help that with all the military and college presence, the median age is probably skewed younger, making driving that much more hazardous to everyone else.

I’m just lonely and sad. I want to do all these things to get ready for the baby and I can’t even start because I don’t even have Alan to help me lift heavy things. So the things I know we need to get have to wait until he’s back and it’s making me feel edgy. And I have trouble walking and getting up and down the stairs now, especially when I’m carrying groceries. And I’m getting heavier, which is depressing, only I have no idea where it’s going because my clothes all still fit and my belly just doesn’t seem that much larger.

I just need a hug. ::sniffle::

Angelique had a "holiday" brunch yesterday for the HHT wives. It was actually kind of fun. I met some really nice women and it was nice to relax and just chat, instead of having to deal with official stuff. Chaplain Oanka’s (I think that’s how it’s spelled… it’s pronounced like Wonka) wife was really sweet, though it took me a little time to get used to her accent (Romanian). I got to know Heather, who’s new to the unit and has the heaviest southern twang I’ve ever heard. She was pretty nice too. It’s so odd to me that all the women my own age are married to officers or NCO’s. I suppose that’s the risk we took when Alan enlisted at 25. Still, I do appreciate the fact that most people think I’m at least 5 years younger. So I think I’ll have a good group of women to turn to once Alan’s gone, especially since a lot of them have been through this before. I think about Kelly Schulz and feel bad. She just had a baby by emergency c-section. Her mom was supposed to come out and help, but got sick and couldn’t. The baby has had to be on oxygen, but because of the c-section recovery, Kelly hasn’t been able to do much, but still has to do it because Ryan is gone. Well, she ended up back in the hospital because she tore an incision, so she got a Red Cross message through to Louisiana and Ryan left JRTC yesterday. If anyone had really known what was going on, probably nearly everyone would have helped her out. But she’s never been all that involved so no one really knew what was happening with her.

For some reason, both Cassie and Charlee seem to turn to me like I know what’s happening. I have no idea why. Granted, I often do know something because Alan makes friends easily and pays attention to what people say around him. Cassie asked why it seemed like the higher the rank, the last to know. I explained that lower ranking soldiers probably just paid more attention because it was always in their best interest to know what the higher-ups were doing and thinking. I think that’s true.

I don’t know if being around people makes the separation easier or harder. It’s a great distraction, but the whole day left me exhausted and just worn out. At least when Alan deploys I’ll be too busy with the baby to have much time to worry about myself. I am glad my mom will be here too. And Cassie said that they’re trying to get Alan on a later deployment wave so that he can be here when the baby is born. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

On all the baby boards, I’ve noticed a real dislike of the name Pippa. It’s made me somewhat hesitant to share our choice with outsiders, though I did tell Heather yesterday, mostly because she asked. Her reaction was what I expected: Like Pippa Middleton? And I explained that I’d read the name in a book, but after hearing it all the time after the royal wedding, it grew on me. The folks on the baby boards are really down on it though. A lot of them think it’s a good name for a dog, but not a kid. Or that it’s fine for a little girl, but that it would never work for a grown woman. I don’t really understand that one since the only person most of them associate with the name is, in fact, a grown woman. Go figure. A lot of the comments are "I really don’t understand the appeal." Or "It’s going to be so popular after all the royal wedding stuff." Only, if so many people so actively dislike it, it probably won’t get that popular, will it? At least not in this country. I told Alan all that and he very firmly said that that’s why he likes it. It’s different and it has a lot of spark to it. Apparently he’s actually told people and they all say that a girl named Pippa seems like she’d be outgoing and lots of fun. It made me feel a bit better about our choice. My mom says that Pippa MacKenzie sounds like a rock star. I figure that’s a good thing. Plus there aren’t any porn stars by that name. If you Google it, you get a husband and wife photography studio in the UK.

I’m rambling now. I’m in the midst of some computer issues. Apparently something is spazzing it out. I tried to download an update to my (expired) antivirus software, only the downloader program won’t open. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s a pain in the ass. Especially since I know that there is something nasty lurking on my computer and I can’t seem to do anything about it. It’s also no fun that I paid for the software and can’t get it.

Anyway, like I said, I’m rambling.

~Liz